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ideas for moving more dogs

Posted: Sun Nov 21, 2010 11:28 pm
by billhunter
So I am a new to this group, and have not flown any missions yet, so naturally I am looking into all the things that can go wrong. Chief among these is what happens if you transport a dog, and the connecting pilot doesn't show, or the weather turns bad half way through the transport. It looks to me like you could end up stranded at an airport in the middle of nowhere with a dog. Has this happened to anyone?

I also noticed that there seems to be a somewhat steady flow of dogs from SE to NE. Each shelter in the connecting states are probably at capacity, but it seems that some kind of deal could be worked out with the shelters where you could first fly a dog from a shelter to a owner, and then have a space reserved, an empty bed, that could be used for PNP animals. You could than move a animal from a shelter further south into this empty bed. The end result would be a sort of railroad of dogs with pilots flying individual legs moving the dogs steadily northward. Such a system would allow pilots to move dogs from location to location without having to worry about connecting flights, coordinating flight times, etc. On any given weekend, a pilot could make a trip from one location to the next, and even make last minute trips. This all could be done without increasing the number of dogs at any given shelter, and in fact it would reduce the number since the PNP bed would only be occupied about half the time.
If such a system could be put together, it would greatly reduce the complexity of a transport, and ease the burden on the pilot, and therefor increase the total amount of dogs moved.

Re: ideas for moving more dogs

Posted: Tue Feb 15, 2011 1:23 pm
by ria221
Not that I'm any authority but I am a rescue and read somewhere on this site to make sure to get Ground Transport/Temp foster for any stopovers or problems for all flights (even ones that have several stops and switch pilots). That's what I try to do when I use PnP pilots.

Re: ideas for moving more dogs

Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2011 1:50 am
by billhunter
That is a good idea, but on a three leg flight you have to coordinate three pilots, the supplying shelter, the receiving shelter or foster, and two ground backup shelters. Trying to put that together when everyone has busy schedules seems a bit optimistic. I think the coordination can be the biggest issue stopping more flights. People with planes tend to be busy people, and weather and mechanical issues often force last minute changes. I wish I was retired so that I had more time to coordinate flights during the week, but as it is now, I am having trouble making the arrangements and finding flights I can help on. I can't help but worry that there are a lot of pilots in the same boat.

Re: ideas for moving more dogs

Posted: Mon Feb 28, 2011 6:55 am
by Desmoss
I've found that in the time I've been flying for P&P, my routes seem to be repeatable with the origin and destination fields occasionally changing (we usually seek the best fuel price...). I've set up a network with 4-5 fellow pilots that have similar qualifications, we've shared cell-phone numbers and we control the transfer. This way, if I have multiple legs, I have no concern about crates, timing, weather and even fosters... before we leave the ground the "i's" are dotted and "t's" are crossed...and we shorten the legs for each pilot. I base at I68 in the Northern Cincinnati area.
Mike
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